I read 7 books over the course of this semester, which is a substantial amount for me. I read Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline, The Rule of Thoughts by James Dashner, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, A Street Cat named Bob by James Bowen, The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and last but not least, Invisible by James Patterson. Some magazines I read this semester were Game Informer and Sports Illustrated Kids because they are subjects that interest me. I also read CNN everyday on my phone because I like being up-to-date on current events. I chose the books I read in the first semester for many different reasons. One of the reasons I chose the book is if the book is by an author that I have read other books by and I know he/she is a good writer and enjoyed his/her other books. Another way I chose the books I read is if I had it recommended to me by my parents since they love reading and have similar tastes as me. I also love reading and love the feeling I get when I complete a great novel. I like how a book can take you on a roller coaster of events, it has its ups, and downs and a good ending that leaves you satisfied. I do have to say though...my favorite book that I read this entire semester was *drum roll please* Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This was my favorite book mostly because it was based on a true story and it's amazing that one man had to live through such a traumatic experience. It also was very impactful to me because it showed me my problems are not so bad after all. I also can't wait to see the movie Unbroken which is based off the book.
I definitely enjoy the feeling I get from blogging, but saying that...my posts started off at an adequate level because I had never done anything like it. Over time though, kind of like anything, as you do it more, you become better. As I kept doing more blog posts and reading other peoples' blogs to get some helpful tips, I became better at writing a "knock-your-socks-off" blog. For the criteria of the highest-quality blog post, I think I did better in certain areas than other areas, which I can focus on next semester. Some of things that I feel I did very well was incorporating the technology available to me. I incorporated a picture on every single blog to give the reader a picture of a character or the book cover. I also put in a video and a link when it was needed to add a greater effect to the blog. I always updated everything on Goodreads after I finished reading because I like Goodreads and I think it's cool how I can record my reading progress on there. My best piece of each blog post though was my voice that was always present, I loved being able to talk like I always do and it could feel like I was having a conversation. As time went on, I got much better at incorporating the audience and I enjoyed doing it. Some of things I did was ask them if they read the book and to leave me their comments or ask them a fun question like "Would you like to live in the reality that they live in?" I also think that as I progressed with the quality of the blogs, I added lots of good diction, focused on the topic, and used those two points (diction and focus) to create an engaging style within my blogs. Overall, I think my posts are strong but I can still improve so I hope we do blogging again next semester.
I do have a few goals that I want to meet during the next semester. For blogging, I want to incorporate more textual evidence because some of my posts lacked that concept and it could have added a lot more to the blog post. I also will want to think of new ways to incorporate the audience instead of just questions about if they read the book or not. Lastly, I will also use more syntactical structures because most of the time my sentences were medium to long in length and syntax can play a major role in the quality of the posts I write. For reading goals, I will want to read more mystery books because I enjoy them so much and how the plot twists make me sit on the edge of my seat. Another goal of mine is to read more complex books because I feel I'm ready for that jump up to the next level of literature and I can gain a lot from it. My last goal for next semester is to read different genres than the ones I'm used to reading, such as realistic fiction, mystery, and occasionally a non-fiction book. So I would like to read more non-fiction, a few history novels, and some biographies to introduce myself to new types of literature. I love reading and I don't know what I would do without this past-time. Being able to blog this semester was a great experience and I hope I'm able to continue next semester.
No comments:
Post a Comment